Айзек Марион - The Living

The man in the truck shouts dark prophecy to the inhabitants of the stadium. He shouts orders from God to the Nearly Living. He shouts encouragement to his followers, unaware that they dispersed hours ago.

Only two remain. While the others fled into the woods, these two stayed with their pastor. They pried open his truck’s door and tried to help him escape, but he ignored them and continued his sermon. The Holy Fire. The Last Sunset. The inescapable end of everything. Now the youths stand at a distance, waiting for the man to emerge from his ruined vehicle. But he won’t leave his megaphone. He stays inside and keeps shouting.

The young woman squeezes the young man’s hand. They look at each other. Their eyes are filled with uncertainty, with terrifying doubt, but they nod. They turn and walk away.

The pastor is alone. He begins to sense it, but he doesn’t stop. While he shouts about Hell, he thinks about Heaven: a golden ghost town, its sole occupant wandering its silent streets, his bare feet cold and sore on the hard metal, roaming from mansion to mansion and finding them all empty.

He shouts and shouts, but no one is listening. He shouts until his megaphone loses power.

On the other side of the stadium wall, there is a smoldering hole in the earth. First the explosion from below, then the dome from above, crashing into the pit and disappearing in the smoke—even with all the miracles unfolding outside, this kind of action still draws a few onlookers, and a crowd has gathered around the pit.

Somewhere down in the dark, locked in a box and buried under tons of debris, another voice is shouting. This one needs no megaphone, it shouts in thoughts and ideas, but even so, no one is hearing it. The voice has never experienced this before, this shocking lack of an audience, this flat wall of disregard. It doesn’t understand what could have changed; it has always enjoyed a direct line to humanity’s lowest instincts. So it keeps shouting.

The voice shouts and shouts, but people have stopped listening. One by one, they lose interest in the pit. One by one, they walk away.

NORA PUSHES OPEN THE HATCH that says no roof access and climbs out onto the roof. She understands why it’s not recommended—there are no safety railings and the whole structure sways slightly like the deck of a ship—but she likes it up here. She likes stepping outside the grid of human traffic. She likes being close to the sky. She never feels more free than when she’s on a rooftop.

She also wants some privacy so she can smoke a joint. It’s been a long day in the foster home.

She sits cross-legged next to one of the huge metal eyelets on the corner of the roof and rests an elbow on the support cable that runs through it. She can feel the vibrations of a dozen other buildings in the cable. Footsteps. Music. Even voices. This might just be her imagination, but then again, her senses have seemed strangely acute lately. Yesterday, one of the kids who doesn’t talk gave her a hug, and his heartbeat felt like code. I’m a bad thing, it seemed to tell her. The world doesn’t want me.

“You’re a beautiful thing, L,” she told him, “and we want you to come back as soon as you’re ready.”

Immediately, L began to cry.

Nora lights the joint and inhales. She holds in the smoke, waiting to feel the relief. Living here was already hard when it was just a few dozen orphans with ordinary traumas—nothing more exotic than abuse or abandonment, nothing she hadn’t experienced herself. But since the repopulation, things have gotten more complicated. And all this on top of her actual job as a nurse. Stitching bodies by day, hearts by night…she needs a break.

She takes a long pull of the sweet, floral vapor. Her nerves begin to uncoil.

“Got you!”

Her brother’s head pops up from the hatch.

Nora smiles in spite of herself. She pats the spot next to her and Addis drops onto it, dangling his feet over the edge.

“One puff,” Nora says, handing him the joint. “And if you start rambling about ‘the Higher’ again, I’m cutting you off for good.”

He looks at her with that cryptic smile that unnerves her even as it fascinates her. He doesn’t talk about his days in the space between Living and Dead—it only slips out when he’s high, whether on sugar, coffee, or more potent substances—but he knows something. Sometimes, Nora feels like she knows it too, though she can’t quite put it into words.

“L remembered his name,” Addis says. He takes a quick puff and returns the joint. “It’s Levi.”

Nora nods. She watches the traffic in the narrow streets below, like blood flowing through a brain. “You’re good with them, Addy. You’re good for them.”

He shrugs.

“You know they look up to you, right?”

“But they’re all older than me,” he says. “They’re teenagers.”

Nora takes another puff and smiles. “Technically, so are you.”

A month ago, he would have gone cold at this. He struggled at first with his ambiguous identity. He couldn’t decide which group he belonged to, who he should play with, how he should talk and behave. He would bristle at any inquiry about his age—some older folks even questioned his race when his yellow eyes gleamed in the sun—but now he just smiles with sheepish amusement.

“I’m weird, aren’t I?”

Nora laughs. “Yes you are, Adderall. The weirdest.”

“Marcus is here.”

Nora pauses with the joint near her lips. “Here? Right now?”

“He’s at the front door.”

She looks at him sideways. “Can you…sense him or something?”

“He knocked earlier. I told him I’d go get you.”

“He’s been at the door this whole time?”

Addis grins.

“You little shit,” Nora chuckles and flicks the joint over the roof. She pauses at the hatch opening and turns around. “I’m glad you’re here, Addy.”

A brief hesitation, a cloud across his face, then: “Me too.”

“I love you. Even though you’re a little shit.”

His grin returns.

Nora descends the tower past floor after floor of other little shits. She pauses at the elementary level and peeks in the door for the day’s final check. She sees Gael and Gebre sipping coffee at the kitchen table, splitting their attention between the stack of essays in front of them and the dozen rambunctious kids around them. They look happy. All of them. The boy Nora knew as L is sitting in the corner, but he’s not alone. He’s playing a video game with a girl about his age. He’s laughing.

“Welcome back, Levi,” she whispers. Then she hurries down the stairs.

She resists the urge to check the hallway mirror, but her hand sneaks a quick hair primp before she opens the front door.

“Sorry about that,” she says with an apologetic eye-roll. “Addy’s into pranks lately.”

Marcus shrugs. “I did kind of kill him once. I’d say he has a lifetime pass to fuck with me.”

Nora smiles, then pauses to look him over. Still the baggy jeans, but he’s traded in the t-shirt for a button-up. He looks trimmer, his bulk a little more contained. Considering how many surgeries he’s been through lately, this probably doesn’t mean much, but still, it’s always intriguing to watch a person change.